Dear Lifehacker,
I watch a lot of online video, and it's great when I'm actually connected to the internet, but sometimes I want to finish what I'm watching somewhere Wi-Fi or cellular data doesn't reach. Is there a way I can download videos from YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, etc., so I can view them offline?

Sincerely,
Online Video Addict

Dear OVA,
Yes and no. Many online video sites operate on a streaming model so you can't just download the video file to your hard drive. They do this because the offer ads, or want control over when and how you watch the content. While you're breaking the rules by downloading from services who try to prevent you from doing so, it's understandable if you just want to finish watching something when you don't have an internet connection. There are ways you can do it, and some methods are better than others. Let's take a look at the most popular online video sites and look at your options.

YouTube

Downloading from YouTube used to be as simple as clicking a button. Video files used to be exposed. You could just find their URL and download them. Unfortunately that is no longer the case, but that doesn't mean saving a YouTube video to your hard drive is impossible. Adapter is a great free audio and video converter for Windows and OS X that also happens to have a YouTube downloader built-in. In fact, it can often recognize video from most other video sharing sites so long as they use Flash. You just enter the URL in Adapter's built-in browser and it'll recognize the video content. The downside is that you'll generally have to let the video play through for Adapter to capture the entire thing. This isn't a big deal, however, as most web content is fairly short and you can just mute your computer and do something else while Adapter handles the job. What's even better is that Adapter will convert that video for you when it's finished, whether that means a standard MP4 file for your mobile or an MP3 version of a music video. It's pretty much the easiest way to handle the job if you want to save Flash content.

Vimeo

Vimeo is a friendly video sharing site that often lets you download its content without any trouble. Right below the video, you'll often find a download button and the option to download your video of choice in multiple formats. Vimeo leaves the choice of whether or not the download button is available to content creators, which is pretty cool. It's a little less cool when content creators don't allow downloads, but that's up to them. If you just want to watch their video offline, Adapter can pull it down for you, too.

Hulu

Hulu makes its money off of advertisements, so downloading its content without watching those ads is a little questionable. If you're just finishing up a TV show or a movie on a train ride home or while you're on an airplane, however, you have a somewhat more justifiable reason to take the content offline. Awhile back we recommended Hulu Video Downloader for the job, but people have had mixed success and it hasn't been updated since late 2009. More recently, How-to Geek posted a Hulu downloading process. Like Hulu Video Downloader, this process is Windows-only. All you have to do is download RTMPDumpHelper and RTMP Dump Toolkit and extract both zips to your desktop. Take the files from both extracted zips and put them in a single folder. From there, run RTMPDumper and open your web browser. It'll "attach" to your browser so that when you visit Hulu, it shoulder intercept the video stream (or, technically, the RTMPSuck tool will do this). You'll have to wait for the video to finish before it's on your hard drive, but just like with YouTube you can mute the computer and do something else while the process completes.

Netflix (and Anything Else)

Netflix videos are a bit harder to download, but like any other site it can't stop you from recording your screen. If you want to save a Netflix video for later viewing, get a great screencasting app, set the recording area to the size of the video window in your browser, tell it to record only your computer's audio, and record until the part of the video you want to save has completed. Then you can watch it later whenever you want.

Like all of these methods, none are perfect. They all involve waiting to save the content, and that's generally pretty annoying. If you want to save an un-downloadable, streaming video for later you're going to have to plan ahead a little and wait. That said, there are few situations these days where internet access is sparse. In most cases you will be able to watch online the way the sites intended. For those exceptions, you can use the tricks above to save some video for later.